How do you pronounce your name?We pronounce it "spee-see-aye-shun", but there are a number of correct pronunciations. Another common pronunciation is "spee-she-aye-shun".

What does your name mean?Speciation is the formation of a new and distinct species in the course of evolution, often a result of physiological, geographical, anatomical or behavioral factors, separating members of one species.

Do you have a taproom?Yes! We have a cozy and intimate taproom where you can try a variety of beers on draft as well as bottles from our cellar pre-chilled for in house consumption. We also have a large selection of bottles and cans available to go.

Do you allow outside food in your tasting room?Yes, we do! Feel free to bring food in from anywhere you like. There are some great options just one block away as well if you’d like to order take out with them: Mad Dogz for awesome hot dogs, Vitales Pizza, and Mill Street Tavern for pub food. We also have pre-made cheese boards, cured meats, crackers, and olives, honey, jam, and Underberg!

Do you make wine, cider or mead?Yes, we are working on a whole line of limited release natural wine, cider, and mead. Cider is currently available at all times in our tasting room. Wine is released under the brand Native Species Winery.

How can I join your bottle club, the Cultured Club?The Cultured Club will open to new members November 1st, 2019 at noon. Purchase a membership in our Store when it becomes available.

Do you do tours?Contact our tasting room manager, Quinn at quinn@speciationartisanales.com

How can I get your beer?The best way is to visit the tasting room, which has beer on draft, and bottles available to go at all times. Alternatively, you can reserve tickets for a monthly bottle release. Tickets for bottles will be sold online the first Saturday of the month at noon, and the pickup day will be the second Saturday of the month. We are also on tap at a few locations around GR, and have bottles available at a limited amount of bottle shops in Michigan. We also send quarterly shipments to Mikkeller and Brewdog in Europe. See the Find Our Beer page for a list of shops that carry our bottles.

Are you hiring?Not at this moment, but feel free to email a resume to Mitch, and we will keep your resume on file until we need to hire.

What kind of methods do you use to make your beer?Most of our standard offerings are open fermented in large stainless steel cubes, called IBC's (Intermediate Bulk Containers), and then transferred to oak barrels for aging. We pitch wild sourced yeast and bacteria, let the beer age for a number of months. Then we package, and let the bottles condition (naturally carbonate) before releasing them. All of our smaller releases will be barrel aged. Some of our releases are aged in exclusively stainless steel, depending on what our intentions are with the beer. Our specialty is making wood aged wild beer, which takes 6-18 months on average from grain to glass. We will also be utilizing a coolship to create spontaneously fermented beer, which we will age for 9 months to 3 years.

What is wild beer?This is a big debate among brewers, but we define wild beer as any beer that embraces and displays characteristics from microorganisms that come directly from the wild, either through a coolship, open fermentation, fruit, yeast traps, etc. Simply adding a lab pitch of brettanomyces does not make a beer wild (although it might make it delicious…!)

Is all of your beer sour?All of our beers embrace wild organisms, but our beers are designed to have varying levels of acidity. Some are very acidic, and some are less acidic.

What is spontaneously fermented beer?Spontaneously fermented beer is beer that is completely fermented with organisms from the wild using either a coolship, fruit additions, or some other method of inoculation. The main rule is that the brewer can’t pitch yeast. This method can produce extremely complex and delicious beers after extended aging and blending. This won’t be the only way we make beer, but it’s definitely going to be a large part of what we do in the future.

Will you make “Lambic” beer?American Spontaneous/Coolship beers are quite different from Lambic, and we are proud to join the extremely small group of brewers in America that use a coolship to experiment outside of the boundaries of Lambic. Some things that differentiate us are that we are not located in Belgium (obviously), and we do not usually use the traditional Lambic methods such as turbid mashing, aged hops, very long boils, etc. We will brew a few batches of Méthode Traditionnelle each year.

Is wild beer safe to drink?Absolutely! The short answer is that alcoholic beverages above 2% abv and/or below 4.5 pH are entirely safe to drink.

Will you make a gluten free beer?No, unfortunately not. Although we do have wild cider on tap at the brewery, and we will be launching our wine program (Native Species Winery) in 2019.

Are your beers vegetarian/vegan?Yes. No finings or animal products will be used, whatsoever. Occasionally we use honey, but it’s always listed on the label if it contains honey.